


Gray, Black, White

by alltheircrimesarejust



Category: Divergent (Movies), Divergent Series - Veronica Roth, Snowpiercer (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Canonical mentions of cannibalism, Crossover, Dead Babies, F/M, Gen, Other, The Snowpiercer/Divergent world mashup that no one wanted but are getting anyway, Violence, minimal beta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 15:03:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2472548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltheircrimesarejust/pseuds/alltheircrimesarejust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the Tail, there are no factions left. Factions are reserved for the front of the train, where they have such luxuries as civility. In the Tail, there are just the survivors. </p>
<p>A merged universe fic for Snowpiercer and the Divergent series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gray, Black, White

_Now_

 

There are no colors in the Tail, not anymore. Red, yellow, black, they’ve all faded, bleached into dirty grays. Even the people. Vibrant hair dyes went extinct years ago. Piercings lost their gleam. Tattoos are hidden under the permanent coat of dirt they all have, no one ever able to get or stay perfectly clean.

In the tail there are no factions either. Only in the first months did Dauntless stay with Dauntless while Abnegation tried to reach out. The factionless slunk in the shadows, never quite looking at anyone else. But now they’re all gray. All faded. The only color that seems to matter anymore is the deep red of the protein blocks. 

 

_Then_

”Some Erudite designed it. Says the perpetual motion will keep the cold from affecting us. It’ll keep us alive.” 

“That many factions in a tiny space? It won’t last a month. People would rather freeze.”

 

_Now_

“Up. Up, c’mon. Block me! Again!” 

There’s no space down on the ground, so they fight on the catwalks above them all. Skilled feet stay on the railings, deftly avoiding the empty spots. The pair of them move in a dance with knives between them.

Tris. They were in the same Initiation year. He was born Dauntless. She transferred from Abnegation, one of the only Stiffs to do so. He remembered it had been a big deal.

She’d said she wanted to be an instructor to the other Dauntless, maybe be a part of turning the faction around. That was seventeen years ago. Now she’s as gray as the day she was the first jumper. She’s repaired her jacket over and over, but it doesn’t help the fading. The boots she was given when someone else died are peeling away from their soles. The three ravens on her collarbone are still distinct, but the edges have gone fuzzy. Touch-ups aren’t really a priority anymore.

The only ones who get new tattoos anymore are the people like she’s fighting. The boy—appropriately named Grey for his dead Abnegation parents—wears them in place of words. 

“Again!” 

Grey chases her with his knife and she twists backward, dodging. Grey is young and fast, but she’s skilled, as skilled as the day she jumped on the train.

 

_Then_

Erudite get first class, of course. They demand it, the bastards. They designed the train and saved everyone. They should be the ones in front, living it up while they keep it running. Candor accept the positions they’ve always held, arbiters, lawmakers and deliverers of order. Amity will survey the means of food and sustaining it. Abnegation volunteer to work in service throughout the train. 

The Dauntless are told to run. They’ve spent their whole lives catching trains, after all. If they’re really Dauntless then they won’t be afraid to run, to leave the class and cars they get to fate. They’ll be brave.

Factionless get the tail or nothing at all.

 

_Now_

“Do you remember Dauntless cake?” Edgar asks him one day. “Uriah mentioned it…but he wouldn’t say anything else after.”

“He shouldn’t have said anything before either. There’s no reason to remember it in here.” Curtis says, pushing the question away. “And if you don’t know what it tastes like, you’re better off not asking.” 

“What about her? C’mon, Tris,” Edgar pushes. “You’ve got tattoos. You were Dauntless, weren’t you?” 

Tris gives him a sideways look, her expression somewhere between hard steel and deep sadness. “I don’t remember either.” Curtis can almost tell when she’s lying. God knows, she had to learn how to do it. Probably, she’s had to tell her share to protect herself. She’d sworn she was Dauntless up and down, but Curtis thinks differently. He has since they were sixteen and Erudite tried to massacre the Abnegation. He had been awake too, unaffected by the serum, but he hadn’t been a hero. He’d played along until it was safe to desert.

Sometimes people still whisper and look at her sidelong, say that she’s one of _them._ One of the people who’s supposed to be _different_ , supposed to save them all. 

If Tris has any such messianic inclinations, she’s kept them to herself. It’s probably how she’s survived so many uprisings. McGregor had claimed to be a Divergent and look how much good it had done them.

 

_Then_

Dauntless leadership don’t have to jump. They’re in the front of the train, cozy with Erudite. 

The rest of them wait, shivering against the cold and trying to look strong despite the way it makes their very bones feel like glass. The train will round the corner, slow down, and they’ll run. Peter, the rat of a boy who transferred from Candor, looks at Tris like he can’t wait for her to slip on ice and fall. Curtis doesn’t see what the point is. Why worry about others when there’s a place on the train to worry about. It’s just like Choosing Day only with worse consequences. 

They hear the train chugging around the tracks. They run.

Some of the bigger, crueler Dauntless push others out of the way without a thought. They grab the handles of first and second class doors. Curtis is running but every chance to jump gets taken from him, the bars filled up with the hands of bigger and stronger Dauntless. 

In the distance he sees blonde hair while a taller Dauntless girl runs along her side, failing to quite keep up. Christina. That’s her name. 

One good jump and they’ll get a second class car. The _last_ second class car. At least Tris will. Her friend reaches out to her, grabbing for a space on the bar she won’t get. Already, her instructor boyfriend is waiting for them and holding out an arm. They call him Four, because he only had four fears in his final test. Curtis wonders if one of them was losing her. 

It’s like he can see the Divergent gears turning in her head when she grabs her boyfriend’s hand and yanks her best friend over, making them clasp hands. The time it takes carries the train from her, separates her from her friends forever. A Stiff ‘til the end. 

She pumps her arms and waits for the next passenger car. Curtis scrambles to keep up a few yards behind. The last moment passes and they grab the same bar.

They’re going to be in the Tail.

 

_Now_

Minister Mason stands at the front, sharp in her Candor black and white. Andrew, vacant from pain and the loss of his son, is only barely aware of the shoe on his head. Of the metaphor and example being made of him. 

On either side of him, Edgar bristles and snarls. Tris is hard as nails. He watches her stare down the Dauntless guards from the front. It’s clear that the factions still exist there, where they have room for luxuries like civilization and society. 

He remembers Mason’s bodyguards well. Peter and Eric. Both transfers, both too deadly and cruel for their own good. There’s a man back here their age, Edward, missing an eye from their initiation days. Curtis stares hatred into them, curses their luxury and privilege, their beastly cruelty. They say Tris shot them both, the day of the massacre. 

If only she’d gotten them each in the neck.

 

_Then_

After a month, they take survival into their own hands. Curtis learns then what human flesh tastes like. Learns that there’s always a distinct point when something stops being alive, stops being a person, and starts becoming meat. The hungrier he gets, the earlier that point is. 

The factionless are the weakest. Most of them were malnourished before the snow and it’s only worse. 

No one looks at anyone else. No one wants to know which of their friends have joined them in monstrosity. 

There’s a baby crying and Curtis hates himself when his mouth waters. Experience tells him now that babies are tender, their meat the most flavorful. Hunger tells him to forget that it’s a person, to only see prey. The mother, Abnegation, lies dead and Curtis spins his knife, ready to eat. 

“Stop…” No one ever speaks when this happens. No one makes eye contact.

There’s an Abnegation man behind him, a hand outstretched for the knife.

In the days that follow, he never has the courage to search his memories, to ask who is ultimately the guiltiest of the most atrocities. He doesn’t dare look at Uriah or Marlene. For a while, he thinks Tris is dead until someone points her out, holding a silent toddler up in the catwalks.

He never has the courage to ask if she ate his mother.

 

_Now_

There are no colors in the Tail. The only colors that matter are the dark red of the protein blocks.

And the dull silver of the capsules that deliver the red letters.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is...actually based on a weird ass dream I had about Snowpiercer. In this dream, if you didn't have a first or second class ticket, you had to run alongside the train and jump on to a car. Whatever car you got determined your class. I told a few friends about this and was told to write the fic.
> 
> So...I did.


End file.
